Discrepancies In the Nativity Story

[Just_A_Guy]

Originally Posted by Enlil-An

Then why did they return (your words, not Matthews) back to Nazareth? Did they assume everyone in that one-horse town would forget the whole unholy affair after a few years?

How do we know anyone in Nazareth knew (besides Joseph)? Mary spent at least some of her pregnancy at Elizabeth's home. Even if the Nazarenes were drawing inferences--maybe the family had nowhere else to go. How mobile was Jewish society?

Yes it does because it says, "when they had performed all things according to the law of the Lord" and since we have the law in Leviticus, whe know that it wouldn't have been more than a month - nowhere near two years.

Your assertion that it "wouldn't have been more than a month" displays a certain ignorance of Mosaic law.

[john doe]

Originally Posted by Enlil-An

Who? LDS scholars? Bible scholars? Were those scholars there? The only sources scholars have to believe Jesus was born at Bethlehem are Matthew and Luke and as we have seen, they are unreliable sources for the birth of Jesus. They both had a motive for concocting such stories. Many Jews had a problem with Jesus being the Messiah because he was from Nazareth and every good Jew knew the Messaih would come out of Bethlehem.

It doesn't matter to me whether Jesus was really born at Bethlehem or not. The problem I have is that all my life I believed the stories in the Bible were, even if mistranslated here and there, nevertheless true. Now I'm finding that's not the case and I'm concerned that I had to discover this outside of Church sources which are supposed to be the supreme, enlightened authority on the scriptures.

Or maybe you're blowing so much smoke that you think you can convince us we're on fire. Why do I suspect that this whole charade is a smokescreen for another agenda?

[Snow]

Originally Posted by bytebear

How do you know that either book isn't mistranslated? .

Which words or phrases are you suggesting were mistranslated?

Could you give us the correct translation please?

[Snow]

Originally Posted by Enlil-An

It recently came to my attention that the birth narratives of Jesus in the gospels of Matthew and Luke are irreconcilably contradictary.

You should get out more often. It's hardly breaking news.

My question is, has anyone else here noticed this and how do we reconcile it with the Church's position that the Bible is the word of God (originally written by inspired men) and that the only errors in it are mistranlations and interpolations here and there?

1. Yes

2. Easy - they got it wrong.

What's the problem?

[Justice]

These things will never be proven by evidence or by breaking the words down. The more you understand about the scriptures the greater the test of your faith becomes.

The scriptures plead many times for us not to condemn the things of God for the mistakes made by men.

I think you're over reacting, and I ask the same question Snow did...

What's the problem?

[Enlil-An]

We would assume wrongly, for as I've already pointed out Matthew makes no such statement.

If Matthew didn't want us to infer that Jesus' parents were already living in Bethlehem when Jesus was born then why doesn't he explain to us what on earth they're doing there? He doesn't mention an inn or a manger. When the wise men find Jesus, they find him in a "house". And even if he did believe that his parents were new arrivals to the little town (something that he nowhere states), he obviously doesn't believe they originally came from Nazareth as evidenced by the wording in Matt 2:22-23 which would suggest to anyone reading the story away from the influence of Luke that Jesus' family had never lived there before.

The notion of their having "stayed so long" is pure inference. The term used throughout the story of Herod is "paidion", which properly means "infant".

But which can also be extended to mean young child. Matthew 2:16 says, "Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently enquired of the wise men." In other words, when Herod enquired of the wise men at what time the star appeared in the sky, they told him it was two years before the wise men arrived in Judea. See verse 7.

The notion that they were planning to return "there" is, again, pure inference. Matthew says only that they were going somewhere in Judea. Jerusalem would have been the logical choice as the place to raise the Son of God.

And the little po-dunk town of Nazareth would have been the second most logical choice? If anyone is inferring explainations from the gospel accounts things for which there is no evidence, it's you. The most logical conclusion is that Joseph was going back to Judea because that's where Matthew believed (or would have his community believe) that that's where Joseph and Mary were from in the first place.

He does say it would be in the Land of Jerusalem. You're going to have to do some powerful arguing to convince me that Nephi would consider Nazareth (part of Galilee, which was part of the Northern Kingdom of Israel which fell to the Assyrians nearly a century before Nephi's day) as part of the "land of Jerusalem".

That could easily be explained by pointing out that Nephi was writing for the benifit of his own people who were no longer living in the Middle East and had no concept of Levantine geography. To the Nephites, the "land of Jerusalem" encompased the region on the other side of the world where their ancestors originated from. If Nephi was trying to be as specific as you say I think he would be more likely to refer to it as the kingdom of Jerusalem.

Another inference. Matthew does not say Joseph feared Archelaus because he was Herod's son. He merely notes that Archelaus reigned "in the room of his father Herod".

Matthew 2:22-23 -"But when he [Joseph] heard that Archelaus did reign in Judaea in the room of his father Herod, he was afraid to go thither: notwithstanding, being warned of God in a dream, he turned aside into the parts of Galilee: And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth..."

Why is Luke going to make such an elementary blunder about Roman census practices in a book written for the benefit of . . . subjects of Rome?

Because Luke is a poor historian. For example, Luke tells us that Jesus was born in the days of king Herod when Cyrenius (Quirinius) was governor of Syria. But the historical reality is that Herod died in 4 BC and Quirinius didn't become governor of Syria until 6 AD (a whole ten years later). Luke also claims that the census which drove Joseph and Mary from Nazareth to Bethlehem was decreed by Ceaser Augustus and encompased the entire Roman empire. This is just rediculous. Are we to believe that everyone dropped what they were doing, left their homes and their jobs and travelled back to "their own city" (whatever that means) and that the Roman economy didn't collapse? Are we also to expect that that this massive shift of populations was not recorded by a single chronicler of the time other than Luke?

The census Luke is referring to is well known in history. It is the census of Quirinius conducted in 6 or 7 AD, after the Romans ousted Herod Archelaus as ruler of Judea and the Levant came under direct Roman rule. The census was not conducted over the whole empire, only over the newly created Iudaea Province and, as I mentioned, nowhere in any historical source (other than Luke) does it say that people were required to travel anywhere specific to register.

Source? And why is John more reliable on this point than modern-day Apostles of Christ? None of them were there at the nativity--so why is John so special?

It's something histirians refer to as the criterian of dissimilarity. The idea is that if a particular saying or story goes against the interests or concerns of the message that the author is trying to convey, then it is probably more reliable. In John's gospel, the biggest reason people reject Jesus as the Messiah is because he comes from Nazareth instead of Bethlehem. Jesus' messiahship is challenged in several places in John and not once does John try and refute the accusations that Jesus can't be the Messiah because he doesn't come from the City of David. He never says, "but the people didn't know that Jesus was really born at Bethlehem" or anything like that. It's almost as if John knows Jesus wasn't from Bethlehem but just didn't care about it. Unlike Matthew, John is not trying to convince Jewish people that Jesus is the Christ. He doesn't quote a string of Old Testament prophecies. John doesn't care what the Jews think. In his gospel, he even has Jesus tell the Pharisees that their father is the devil. He then renounces the entire Jewish nation in front of Pilate, telling him they are not his kingdom. Thus being liberated from Jewish tradition, John's Jesus can comfortably be from Nazareth regardless of what any old Jewish prophecy might say to the contrary. He just isn't bothered.

Either way, the point is that all three gospels are considered to be scripture by our Church. What does it matter which one is more realiable than the other. If any of them are that unreliable, it calls into question the Church's position, not only on the Bible, but other things as well.

My wife and I are in a crosswalk when we both become victims of a hit-and-run, where the driver does not stop. I say we were hit by a Ford Expedition. She thinks it was a Chevy Suburban. Since my wife's and my accounts differ, the the logical inference is . . . we obviously weren't hit by any kind of SUV--notwithstanding the testimonies of additional witnesses who say that it was an SUV. Right?

This comparison is not even close to the gospel narratives of Jesus' birth. First of all, Matthew and Luke were not present at the birth of the Savior like you and your wife were present at the accident. Second, there is no trace of additional witnesses to the birth of Jesus to corroborate either story in the gospel accounts. Third, you and your wife have no motive for fabricating an accident involving an SUV, but both Matthew and Luke do have a motive for fabricating a story that places the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem.

All Israel was waiting for the coming of a messiah who would save their people and they all knew that it was prophecied that this messiah would come from Bethlehem. The problem is that the Christian messiah comes from Nazareth. So in order to convince others that Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah of Old Testiment prophecy, Matthew and Luke came up with their own stories (or took them from oral tradition) of how Jesus was born at Bethlehem but raised at Nazareth and because they both were writing independantly of eachother, they both came up with wildly different accounts.

It would be like you and your wife saying that you were in an accident with an SUV, which was now missing, and when the police seperated the two of you to get each person's side of the story, you both came up with completely different narratives of where you were coming from, where you were going, and how the accident happened. The police would rightly assume at this point that there probably was no accident involving an SUV and that both of you were lying. Likewise, the Nativity narratives of Matthew and Luke don't corroborate each other and are not historically plausible. The only explaination is that they are lying or getting their information from extremely dubious sources. Even if Jesus really was born at Bethlehem, it couldn't have happened the way either of those gospel writers say it did.

[Snow]

Originally Posted by Justice

These things will never be proven by evidence or by breaking the words down.

Well that's untrue. Evidence (facts of history) and words (contradictions between Gospels) have proven that there are errors in the accounts.

[Maya]

I hope you dont overdo this problem Enlil-An. The answer may be simplier than you think. Joseph was a carpenter... maybe he got a good work possibility while there? Carpenters often had to move around a lot. Did he have his whole family with or did he leave them in ... Nazareth... when travelling around.
To mix you up even more... You ever read the Gospel of James ... Jesus brother? THERE is some very interesting possibilities. But it all is just that, possibilities, untill we are told/shown the truth.
Why JS did not tell us the truth? What town Jesus was born has little to do with our salvation. Also I think he had so much other things to tell... maybe he did get to know that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, but did not react as that is the common belief? Why would he have reacted to something that was obvious from before? Then again maybe God did not correct the "mistake " if there was any, as it really has nothig to do with our salvation! We need faith. If everything is given us on a plate we do not need faith!
There really are many more important facts that the scolars should search. Bible is not either proven by Arceologists... possibility to that it is telling the truth does excist, we learn the truth of it by faith, just like the BoM.
As it comes to scolars LDS scolars use other biblical scolars all the time as many dont even think LDS scolars can be objective. So why search something they are doing? Even if a scolar thinks he has found a truth... it may be wrong after a few years or decades... so we need to be careful with what we believe. We need to ask God.

[Loudmouth_Mormon]

Originally Posted by Enlil-An

If Matthew didn't want us to infer that Jesus' parents were already living in Bethlehem when Jesus was born then why doesn't he... [do something that would make sense to Enlil-An, a person living two millenia in the future]?

I've never understood how such a complaint can be reasonable at all. The role of communication is to take an idea or concept, move it from inside of you to some sort of medium, move the medium to a recipient, move the message from the medium into the recipient, and have them decode what they find. The end goal is to have the ending message be close to the intended message (a difficult thing since there are problems associated with every single step of the process - even with divine assistance).

So someone comes along and looks at a printed page in which:
* the original source has been translated into a different language by someone other than the original author
* there is at least a couple of centuries separating the source used to translate to the original source
* the original source is describing events they were not present for in the first place
* The original source, the derivitave source we can look at today, some of the translating sources, and the person looking at the page are ALL from different cultures and times.

That's what we do when we read the Bible. Along comes Enlil-An, wondering why he's finding some discrepancies. Fine - there are some discrepancies. But to assume that the original source WOULD HAVE written a certain thing a certain way if he were truly trying to communicate a certain message, seem to me destined to failure. And on top of that, you're not even talking about a communicated message - you're griping about why the message didn't explicitly contain something to help you not infer something that isn't even there to begin with!

At the end of the day, I'll tell you what I tell any other person who attacks the veracity of my church (which you are doing by advancing the notion that the authors of some books of the Bible lied intentionally to turn a mortal into a God). The only good reason to be Mormon, is you figure God wants you to be. A testimony that hangs on anything besides the reality of God and the gospel of Jesus Christ, is likely to be shaken off it's foundation by whatever earthly whim or discipline or line of reasoning someone holds in higher value.

LM

[Just_A_Guy]

Originally Posted by Enlil-An

If Matthew didn't want us to infer that Jesus' parents were already living in Bethlehem when Jesus was born then why doesn't he explain to us what on earth they're doing there? He doesn't mention an inn or a manger.

I dunno. Maybe he just had a brain freeze. Maybe his sources were faulty. Maybe he figured it was none of our business. Maybe because he did want to downplay Jesus' Nazarene background.

When the wise men find Jesus, they find him in a "house".

Like many of the other terms to which you impute only one particular meaning--"oikia" can be an actual residence, but it can also be a generic term for any place of abode.

And even if he did believe that his parents were new arrivals to the little town (something that he nowhere states), he obviously doesn't believe they originally came from Nazareth as evidenced by the wording in Matt 2:22-23 which would suggest to anyone reading the story away from the influence of Luke that Jesus' family had never lived there before.

Assumptions. It's just as plausible that the text is merely introducing a new (to the reader) and relatively obscure location into the story.

But which can also be extended to mean young child.

Hardly the "smoking gun" you originally made it out to be.

In other words, when Herod enquired of the wise men at what time the star appeared in the sky, they told him it was two years before the wise men arrived in Judea. See verse 7.

Another assumption, and an incorrect one. In truth, all we can purport to "know" is that at the time Herod gave the order he believed Jesus had been born at some indeterminate date within the previous two years. We know nothing further of the time frame. We don't know whether the star came before or after Jesus' birth, or how close the date of its appearance was to the date of the event it announced. We don't know how much time passed between the star's first appearance and the time the wise men got to Herod; we don't know how long it took them to find Jesus after they saw Herod, and we don't know how long it took Herod to figure out that the wise men weren't coming back.

And the little po-dunk town of Nazareth would have been the second most logical choice?

Naturally. According to Luke's account, that was where they were from.

The most logical conclusion is that Joseph was going back to Judea because that's where Matthew believed (or would have his community believe) that that's where Joseph and Mary were from in the first place.

Another unwarranted inference from an ambiguous passage in Matthew.

That could easily be explained by pointing out that Nephi was writing for the benifit of his own people who were no longer living in the Middle East and had no concept of Levantine geography. To the Nephites, the "land of Jerusalem" encompased the region on the other side of the world where their ancestors originated from. If Nephi was trying to be as specific as you say I think he would be more likely to refer to it as the kingdom of Jerusalem.

If I'm writing to my descendants about events that will take place in Tijuana, I'm not going to explain it as being in the "Land of San Diego"--even if I'm from San Diego, and my descendants could never possibly know the difference.

Matthew 2:22-23 -"But when he [Joseph] heard that Archelaus did reign in Judaea in the room of his father Herod, he was afraid to go thither: notwithstanding, being warned of God in a dream, he turned aside into the parts of Galilee: And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth..."

Joseph was afraid of living under Archelaus' reign, I grant you. But the scripture does not say why. Anything further is speculation.

Because Luke is a poor historian.

His memory is more than likely garbled, yes. I have no problem with Luke's getting some of the dates and details wrong. Heck, he may even be referring to the wrong census, or some other government action that wasn't technically a "census" at all. There was no internet; no school textbooks; no newspaper morgue to verify his memory (or the oral histories) against.

That doesn't mean he's lying about the essentials: that Mary and Joseph lived in Nazareth but were compelled to travel to Bethlehem, where Jesus was born.

It's almost as if John knows Jesus wasn't from Bethlehem but just didn't care about it.

Another unwarranted inference.

This comparison is not even close to the gospel narratives of Jesus' birth.

I'm not comparing it to the gospel narratives; I'm comparing it to how you seem to treat them. You're taking two accounts of the same fundamental event, pointing out some differences, and using the existence of the differences to justify the assertion that even where the accounts agree they are unreliable.

. . . both Matthew and Luke do have a motive for fabricating a story that places the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem.

Which brings to mind another question: If Jesus was not born at Bethlehem, where does that leave Micah's prophecy?

It would be like you and your wife saying that you were in an accident with an SUV, which was now missing, and when the police seperated the two of you to get each person's side of the story. . .

We can stop right there. Neither Matthew nor Luke bear a remote similarity to "police statements". A better analogy is if my wife, explaining to her boss later that day why she was late for work, went into painstaking detail about our actions both before and after the crash; while I (who am a lousy judge of distance) later told a friend in passing that the impact threw us nearly a hundred feet when in truth we had been thrown fifty feet.

Likewise, the Nativity narratives of Matthew and Luke don't corroborate each other

When you take out all the assumptions, innuendo, and inferences drawn from textual ambiguities, all you've really got is the following:

a) Matthew does not tell us where Joseph and Mary lived before Jesus' birth, whereas Luke does.
b) Matthew does not explain why Joseph and Mary were in Bethlehem, whereas Luke does.
c) Luke botched the date of Jesus' birth and, very probably, at least some of the particulars of the situation that got Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem in the first place.
d) Luke does not mention the flight into Egypt, whereas Matthew does.

There's a lack of overlap, to be sure; and each account individually has some flaws. But I see no prima facie evidence of actual conflict between the two accounts.